Circling the Paradoxes
by Cisselah
Summary: Robert J. Barton doesn't know it yet, but this is the most important case of his career.


**~*Circling the Paradoxes*~**

_**By: Cisselah**_

~*-.-*~

_**(Chaser 3)**_

_**written for**__ Cearphilly Catapults_**_ in _**_The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition_

_**Prompts: 1, 5 & 12**_

_**~*-.-*~**_

They bring him in, clad only in chains and borrowed, much-too-big black robes, dropping him unceremoniously on the floor.

"What are the charges?" Robert J. Barton asks, not really caring about the answer as he looks down his nose on the filthy old man with the long, tangled beard. His face twists briefly in disgust at the sight of the prisoner. Robert has always found beards and long hair to be unhygienic and repulsive, but the old man takes his disgust to new heights.

"Murder, sir," the Auror to the left says grimly.

"Using one of the Unforgivables, sir," says the Auror to the right in a voice that vibrates with hate and disgust.

The whole Wizengamot holds their breaths as they wait for his response. Silence has fallen thick over the room, the only sound being the ragged breathing of the prisoner and the scratching sounds of Undersecretary Crouch scribbling down notes (most likely on how to look powerful and important in front of the Wizengamot).

Robert leans forward to take a closer look at the prisoner. He's old, definitely over the hundred year mark, but no longer than hundred and fifty judging by the way his grey hair has yet to lose all its color. He's skinny too, starved in a way that shows his ribs even through the borrowed robes. His hair is matted and tangled, his beard long and unkempt, almost covering his entire face. He doesn't look like much, more pathetic than anything, and certainly not dangerous enough to have to be escorted by two Aurors instead of the usual two hitwizards, but Robert knows more than anyone that appearances are deceiving.

"How do you plead?" he asks the prisoner, not able to hide the disgust coating his voice. The prisoner looks up, then moves almost unnoticeably, his sleeves riding up to reveal an old, golden wristwatch. For a brief moment, Robert thinks that the prisoner's eyes are familiar. Dark green. Big. Full of sorrow and dark irony, like he knows something Robert does not. But the face those familiar eyes are placed in is a strangers and Robert is certain that he's never met the man before him. Beside Robert, Anselm shifts his weight as if he can feel his best friend's discomfort.

"How do you plead?" Robert inquires again, feeling irritation build inside his chest at sight of the speechless murderer. Any other man - wizard or not - would have cowered under the poisonous tone of the Cheif Warlock's voice, but the prisoner only stares at him with sorrowful, dark green eyes. He opens his mouth as if to speak, but nothing comes out but a pained, rasping groan.

"Answer me or plead guilty by default!" Robert demands the prisoner. "How do you plead?!"

A sharp stab of pain as if someone has buried a poker in his brain.

Legilimency.

"GET OUT!" he screams in pain and anger, lashing out with his mind to drive away a presence that feels disturbingly familiar. "HOW DARE YOU!"

"Robert? Rob, what's going on?" The voice is distorted by a haze of red agony that cloud's his mind and he barely recognizes it as Anselm's.

Struggling with the prisoner in a war of minds, Robert is too busy to answer. Robert has always been good at the mind arts, but it takes seconds, maybe minutes, until he's powerful enough to kick the intruder out of his mind. As the foreign presence fades out of range, a whisper of a voice, raspy and tormented, echoes in his mind like a bad premonition.

_Mensille, _it whispers._ Look at the left heel._

Then it's gone.

"The prisoner has chosen to attempt to invade the mind of the Cheif Warlock," Anselm's icy voice informs the Wizengamot. Gasps of shock and outrage spread across the fifty members of the council as the red haze fades from Robert's mind. "The trial is over. Take him to Azkaban!"

As the prisoner is dragged out the doors, Anselm escorts Robert out of the courtroom, leading his best friend - despite said best friend's protests - into a small medical examination room to wait for the Healer to arrive. Then he leaves, presumably to make sure that the prisoner is taken to the darkest, coldest, most uncomfortable cell to be found.

Robert fumes with irritation.

He's sitting on the bed, rubbing his throbbing temples as he dreams about a cup of coffee when the Healer arrives.

"What are you doing!" she demands to know. "Lie down now, you idiotic man! Don't make me knock you out!"

For a moment Robert considers disobeying, but then he looks up into the face of the most beautiful angel and all defiance slips away. Golden hair. Sky blue eyes. Smooth, cream skin and lips of deepest red. She's the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. So he shuts up and lies down.

This is the beginning.

-w-

It takes him four weeks to must up the courage to ask her out. Every time she's near his heart jumps up in his throat and he stumbles, mumbles, stutters like a child. He's a clumsy, shivering mess when she looks at him. A burning inferno when she smiles. He loves to make her laugh and adores the feeling of her nimble fingers touching him in fluttering, butterfly touches.

So yeah... there's no surprise that he has a hard time asking her out. But he does. Holding a red rose in one hand, he smiles at her and hands it over, feeling the words flow over his tongue in a nervous rush.

And to his delight, she smiles back.

_Yes, _she says_. Of course I'll go out with you._

_It took you long enough._

-w-

He asks her to marry him one starlit night. After the tears have stopped flowing and his knees returned to their original state, they break out the champagne and sits back, looking at the sky together as they entwine their hands and lean back. They talk, about all kinds of things, whispering secrets and thoughts and planning their future together.

"I don't want Anselm to be there," she tells him, her shoulders tense and her eyes wary. "I'm not sure he even wants to come. I don't think he likes me much. There's something about the way he looks at me that makes my skin crawl"

"What are you talking about? Anselm absolutely loves you. He talks about you all the time," Robert says, shocked that she would think otherwise.

"He tried to make you quit seeing me!" She burst out. "He doesn't want us to be together. He doesn't think I'm good enough for you!"

"No, no! That isn't it! Anselm knows I love you. He's realized we're meant to be," he assures her.

Susanna smiles, gently and full of pain, like she can't bear to crush his naive certainties. "Good," she gives in, but he can see in her eyes that she doesn't believe him.

"Together forever," he tells her and kisses her. She melts in his arms, all loose limbs and warm lips, the doubt disappearing like water in the desert.

"Together forever," she whispers back.

-w-

On their wedding night she gives him a wristwatch made of gold. It's a beautiful piece of work, made purely of gold and decorated in curling swirls and sharp scratches. It feels old on his skin, practically ancient as it weighting down his wrist with its unique glory.

He adores it almost as much as he adores his new wife.

_I'll wear it forever, _he promises her_. I'll never take it off._

Years come and years pass. They grow old together, but their love stays young and pure. Despite their best tries they never have any children, and although Susanna wants them so badly that sometimes she almost cries, they have each other and that is enough. _Why would I need children when I have you, _she teases her husband._ You're like one big baby all the time._

Time flies and suddenly it's time for Robert to retire. The headmaster of Hogwarts takes his place as Cheif Warlock, and Robert is content with knowing that Dumbledore will judge each man fairly. Besides, Robert is growing old now, and all he wants is to spend his last couple of years with his beautiful Susanna.

Fate wants differently.

One morning when Robert has gone to clear out his office to make room for the new Cheif Warlock, Susanna dies.

Robert returns home to find her dead in their bed. Murdered.

The Aurors called to the scene finds no evidence but a pair of muddy footprints, the left heel of the shoes that made them worn down and frayed.

Robert turns bitter with grief.

Mourning for his Susanna, he withdraws from the outside world, seeking refuge in a small cottage in the middle of nowhere, allowing only his best friend to visit.

One day Anselm forgets his boots when he floos away. Grumbling bitterly about his best friend's inability to take his damned handmade boots with him, Robert picks them up from the floor to return them. He's on his way to throw the boots into the green flames when he catches a glimpse of the name of the brand. _Mensille. _The name makes something inside Robert stir. A memory half forgotten.

_Mensille. Look under the left heel._

His insides turning to ice at the memory, Robert lifts the left boot and flips it over.

The heel is worn down and frayed.

The realization hits him like a fist to the heart. For a moment he's disorientated, confused, knees deep in disbelief. This can't be, he thinks. There has to be some explanation. He would do this. This can't be.

The green flames surge high and a withered old wizard steps out with an easy smile teasing his lips.

"Rob! Rob, I forgot my darned boots again! Oh look, there they are! I-... Why are you staring at me like that?" Blue eyes drop to the turned upside down boot. Realization flashes through them.

That's all the proof Robert needs.

Dropping the boot, the old wizard stares at his best friend of ninety-four years, his brother in everything but blood, the only one he could ever trust completely.

His wife's killer.

"I guess the game is over then," Anselm says calmly. Somewhere during the last minute, he's drawn his wand, but is not yet pointing it towards his old ex-friend.

"Why?" Robert asks him, his throat dry with rage and shock.

Anselm snorts. "Why do you think?" he answers in the same _use-your-brain-brother _tone that he's always had. A small part of Robert is shocked at how normal he is, how much like Anselm he seems, although this can't possibly be Anselm. Can't be the man he has loved like a brother for almost his entire life.

"You killed Susanna..." the words burns in his throat like glowing embers and he chokes on them, willing them to turn to lies in his mouth.

"You finally figured it out," Anselm says with a snort. "Only took you twenty years or so"

Rage lits him on fire as Robert hisses. "You killed my wife, you wanker! Why? Why her?!"

"Because..." Anselm says. "She wasn't worthy of you" he grins madly. "I did it for you. Because we're brothers"

Robert throws himself at the wizard, his gnarled fingers held out like claws, his eyes shining with hatred as he roars in rage. He doesn't get far. With a few flicks of his wand, Anselm has Robert on the floor, immobile and glaring. The sleeves of Robert's robes slides back to reveal the golden wristwatch Susanna gave him on their wedding day.

Anselm's breath catches in his throat.

"Auredie's Wristwatch," he breathes out in awe, bending over Robert to loosen the wristwatch from his wrist. "I can't believe it. It's been here all the time, right under my nose!"

Robert glares at him, unable to speak through the enchantments. Anselm seems to take that as encouragement to go on.

"I've been look for this for decades," he tells Robert. "Ever since that old man that dug through your skull wore it during his trial. You remember that trial, right? I went to get it from the old man after the trial, but it was gone and so was that old goat. Apparently he had dropped dead a few minutes after he was taken away and one of the guards took the wristwatch and sold it. I tracked it down to Borgin and Burkes, but some woman had already bought it," His eyes shine with eager exhilaration. "Susanna must have bought it and given to you for your wedding! I can't believe it! Oh, Rob... Don't you worry... I'm going to fix everything!"

He stands up and put on the watch, fiddling a little with it in awe. Then he puts his wand against the watch and starts to chant in Latin.

Screaming silent curses, Rob fights against his restraints as Anselm finishes the chant and starts to quickly fade from sight. To his surprise, the curses start to weaken the minute Anselm starts fading. With a silent battle cry that demands blood, he rips away from the last remnants of the curses that held him and lunges for his once best friend, now enemy. He crashes into Anselm as they both disappear from the cottage, yanked away from their time and space and onwards into foreign territory.

They rematerialize in a crowded Diagon Alley amongst the startled crowd. Immediately Robert grabbs Anselm's fallen wand, putting it to the throat of his fallen opponent. Anselm stills immediately and Robert knows he is startled by the hatred he sees shining out from Robert's eyes. Distantly he realizes that their clothes hasn't survived the travel and they both seem to be stark naked.

"Rob..." the traitor starts to say.

His vocal cords still locked by his ex-best friend's powerful curse, Robert glares down at the man that had once been his brother and let the two words - the two forbidden words - fill his mind and the street with deadly green.

_Avada Kedavra._

-w-

They bring him in, clad only in chains and borrowed, much-too-big black robes, dropping him unceremoniously on the floor.

"What are the charges?" the man in front of him asks an almost bored tone. If Robert hadn't already figured out where and when he was, this pale, proud ghost of his past would have revealed it.

"Murder, sir," says the Auror to his left.

"Using one of the Unforgivables, sir," adds the Auror to his right.

Silence.

"How do you plead?" the man asks.

Robert moves almost unnoticeably and looks up at his younger self, standing proud and tall in his plum colored robes, wearing the silver 'W' with honor. Dark irony swimming in his gut, he stares at the man he was, remembering the disdain and disgust he felt. _Just you wait. _He thinks_. Stand there all proud and prideful however long you want to, but just you wait, you ungrateful punk. One day this will be you._

Beside past-Robert, Anselm shifts his weight as he stares in hunger and recognition at the golden wristwatch Robert plucked from his cold body.

"How do you plead?" past-Robert inquires again, looking mightily irritated at being ignored like this.

_It's because I can't speak. The filthy traitor burned out my vocal cords. _Robert glares at his younger self_. Look!_

He opens his mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a pained, rasping groan.

"Answer me or plead guilty by default!" past-Robert demands the prisoner, utterly ignorant about his older self's inability to do so. "How do you plead?!"

Gathering his power, Robert throws his mind towards his younger self, slamming into his shields as he attempts to enter the young man's mind.

"GET OUT!" past-Robert screams, pain and anger coloring his voice as his mind lashes out towards Robert. "HOW DARE YOU!"

"Robert? Rob, what's going on?" Anselm puts his hands on younger self's back. Furious with the display of affection, Robert throws everything he has on the younger Robert's shields. Even though his younger self is stronger both magically and mentally, Robert has more experience and soon cracks open one of the shields to slip inside, leaving a final message behind for his younger self to find before he's kicked out.

_Mensille, _he whispers._ Look at the left heel._

Then he's kicked out.

"The prisoner has chosen to attempt to invade the mind of the Cheif Warlock," Anselm's icy voice informs the Wizengamot. Gasps of shock and outrage spread across the room. "The trial is over. Take him to Azkaban!"

As the Aurors grab his arms and starts to drag him out of the courtroom, he throws one final look back. Anselm's blue eyes finds his over the room, dark promise lurking in the greedy depths as he carries out the younger Robert towards the dark future and the woman he will come to love.

Then he's out the doors of the courtroom, stealing one last glance at himself - young, dumb, side by side with the traitor that will ruin his life - before the doors closes for the last time.

This has been coming, he thinks as they drag him off towards (his death) Azkaban, for a very long time.

-w-

**The End.**


End file.
